On December 7, U.S. District Court Judge R. Stan Baker delivered yet another body blow to President Joe Biden’s heavy-handed vaccine mandate.
In short, Baker ruled that Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors did not pass constitutional muster, thereby ordering an immediate stay to the nationwide mandate.
According to Baker, “The Court acknowledges the tragic toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought throughout the nation and the globe. However, even in times of crisis this Court must preserve the rule of law and ensure that all branches of government act within the bounds of their constitutionally granted authorities.”
Bravo, Judge Baker.
Of course, the Biden administration was not pleased to hear Baker’s ruling. After the decision, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “The reason that we proposed these requirements is that we know they work, and we are confident in our ability, legally, to make these happen across the country.”
Oh, really? If that were the case, then why did Biden’s chief-of-staff Ron Klain basically admit that the vaccine mandate was unconstitutional in the first place?
In case you’ve forgotten, in mid-September, Klain retweeted this now-infamous quip from MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, “OSHA doing this vaxx mandate as an emergency workplace safety rule is the ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations.”
In other words, Klain let the cat out of the bag regarding the Biden administration’s intent in using OSHA to circumvent the Constitution months ago, even before the mandate was officially announced.
Fortunately, the judicial branch is holding up its end of the constitutional bargain by enacting checks on the power-hungry executive branch under President Biden.
Baker’s ruling is the latest in a string of early legal victories against Biden’s nationwide vaccine mandate.
The first major reckoning occurred when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Biden’s vaccine mandate as it applies to all private businesses with 100 or more employees.
This was followed by a court-ordered stay regarding Biden’s vaccine mandate for all health care workers.
So, since Biden announced his controversial vaccine mandate in mid-September, three different judges have ruled it unconstitutional. Although Psaki has downplayed these decisions, they do not bode well for the future survival of the nationwide mandate.
Yet, for those of us who believe in the Constitution, checks and balances, separation of powers, federalism, and individual liberty, the rulings are—as Biden said after the passage of Obamacare—“a big f$%&ing deal.”
For decades, the executive branch has been usurping powers constitutionally granted to Congress and the states. From Woodrow Wilson to FDR to LBJ to George W. Bush to Barack Obama, the trend has been in favor of executive overreach.
For the most part, the judicial branch has played possum when past presidents have run roughshod over the Constitution with unprecedentedly powerful executive orders and the like.
However, for the first time in a long while, it seems as if the judicial branch has rediscovered that it has a backbone, as well as a fidelity to upholding the Constitution.
In 1788, during the debates to ratify the Constitution, James Madison cautioned, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicia[l] in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self–appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Thankfully, the judicial branch looks like it could be back to being the bulwark against the very tyranny Madison warned of before the Constitution became the law of the land.
Chris Talgo ([email protected]) is senior editor at The Heartland Institute.
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